


put them together and you can hear it (it's the song everyone knows)

by elsinorerose



Series: and although i was burning, you're the only light [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, okay there's a little bit of angst, that's it just fluff, the fluffiest fluff that ever fluffed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 04:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsinorerose/pseuds/elsinorerose
Summary: "So go on. Convince me."He catches his breath. "Convince you?""Yeah, give me one good reason.""Onegood — I can give you twenty good reasons.""Oh yeah?" Jester says, raising her eyebrows, like she's just so surprised, like she's ready to beso convinced,you guys. "Okay. Go ahead then.""Go ahead and…?""Give me twenty. If you can give metwenty good reasonswhy we shouldn't be together, you win."





	put them together and you can hear it (it's the song everyone knows)

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, Thursday's episode was so rough I had to sit down and write some truly saccharine fluff to cope with it. Here is that fluff. This is unconnected to my current fic series and is instead set (roughly) a year and a half in the hypothetical future from episode 55, meaning that the Nein have been together for (again, roughly) two years or so. Also, this is un-beta'd, so please be gentle. :P 
> 
> Title from "Animal Spirits" by Vulfpeck.

"Coward."

Caleb half-starts, so absorbed in his book that he hadn't noticed Jester come into the room. Or maybe she snuck in on purpose, it occurs to him — the library carpet is soft enough to muffle her footsteps, and she does like a good dramatic opening, this one.

Well, he supposes, blinking up at her, he doesn't entirely begrudge her the interruption. The treatise on pre-calamity runic traditions that he's holding is fascinating, certainly, but nothing compared to the sight of Jester, leaning with both hands on the other side of the table to glare at him, mischief dancing in her eyes.

He effects a long-suffering sigh, closes and sets down his book with deliberate slowness, and meets her gaze. "Not that I am arguing," he tells her, trying to hide a smile though he's pretty sure it's a lost cause, "but would you be more specific?"

"Mm-hmm. You told Beau we'd make a terrible couple."

...Right. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that.

Caleb coughs self-consciously. "It's true, you and Beau would make a terrible couple."

"Oh _fuck off,"_ says Jester with a roll of her eyes, "you know _exactly_ what I'm talking about."

Worth a try, at least. He can feel a familiar heat climbing up his neck and ears. "Beauregard is too nosy for her own good," he mutters, neither denial nor confirmation, because he has learned after much study that in cases like this, putting up too much of a fight against Jester will only make things go worse for him.

Not that they could be going much worse anyway. She has taken his words as an invitation and pulled up a chair, sitting down across from him, elbows on the table, hands eagerly folded in front of her. "You know, Beau told me _a lot_ of things."

"Uh-huh."

"You two had _quite a conversation."_

Caleb finds himself stealing glances at the room around them — why, for fuck's sake, didn't he think to put more than one exit in the library the first time he cast _magnificent mansion?_ The only way out is some ten or so yards in front of him, and there is a flirtatious tiefling in his way, her tail flicking back and forth behind her like he has seen Frumpkin's do right before pouncing.

He has a feeling he is not going to get any more reading done tonight.

Jester is grinning expectantly.

Well, she's not getting an answer out of him that easily. "I hope you had to use that _zone of truth_ spell of yours on her," says Caleb lightly, "or else she and I are going to be having _another_ conversation very soon."

"Oh, don't worry, _Caleb,_ she didn't mean to _betray your secrets!"_ Jester's grin gets wider. "She just talks in her sleep, that's all."

He can't help himself — he leans forward now, mirroring her pose, until their faces are nearly too close for comfort, and stares into her eyes for a long moment.

_...Oh, gods._

"...Jester Lavorre," he declares, well aware that the blush has crept into his cheeks now, "you are lying."

She leans even closer, so that he could count every freckle if he wanted to, and whispers, "You are a _very good_ lie detector, Caleb Widogast."

Well, that's it, isn't it, she's going to be the death of him, he's actually going to die. Caleb pulls away, leans back into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, and tries _very_ hard not to look either giddy or panicked.

"So anyway!" says Jester brightly, full volume again, in Caleb's _quiet library_ where he is supposed to be having a _quiet night in,_ "I thought, you know, maybe you had some explaining to do, since obviously you've lost your mind."

Gods help him, he's smiling again. "I think we would make a bad couple, therefore I have lost my mind?"

"Basically, that's right."

"We're going to have this conversation, you and I, right now?"

Her eyes sparkle. "Basically, yeah."

"Did you even actually talk to Beauregard?"

"Oh, no, she wouldn't tell me _anything,_ not even when I got her drunk," says Jester happily. "I just mentioned how we'd be, like, _so cute_ together, and she was like, oh, you know, _Caleb_ doesn't think so, and then she looked _terrified_ and shut up right away."

Caleb frowns. "I never said — "

Jester beams.

" — That is not what I said," Caleb corrects himself, but it's too late, and wow, they really are having this conversation.

It's not like...well...like it hasn't been a long time coming, exactly. Well, a little while coming. (Or a year coming. Whatever.) Jester said _betraying your secrets,_ but is it really a secret? They both know they've been flirting with each other, they both know that the names Fjord and Astrid aren't magical or dangerous or sensitive anymore. Caleb doesn't even bother trying to hide the fact that he's blushing these days whenever Jester teases him, because she _knows,_ because she's doing it on purpose. (Because she thinks he looks _cute_ when he's blushing, which he almost wishes Nott had _never ever told him._ Almost.) They've been traveling together, the whole Mighty Nein, saving the world or saving this or that town or just saving each other, for nearly two years, so it would honestly be impressive, and concerning, if Jester hadn't worked it out by now.

(Two years coming.

Whatever.)

But still, he thinks, still, they haven't _talked_ about it, and if he had his way they never would, because — despite what Beau managed to wheedle out of him the other day, despite the way his heart leans, despite the past two years —

He's staring at her.

Caleb is pretty sure that train of thought was going someplace, but just at this moment he couldn't say where to save his life.

"So go on." Jester puts her chin in her hands. Her hair, which she's taken to wearing long recently, tumbles gently past her fingers in soft curls. "Convince me."

He catches his breath. "Convince you?"

"Yeah, give me one good reason."

_"One_ good — I can give you twenty good reasons."

"Oh yeah?" Jester says, raising her eyebrows, like she's just so surprised, like she's ready to be _so convinced,_ you guys. "Okay. Go ahead then."

"Go ahead and…?"

"Give me twenty. If you can give me _twenty good reasons_ why we shouldn't be together, you win."

He's getting slow, thinks Caleb, or she's somehow getting more enchanting, because he should have seen this coming a mile away, but the firelight from the nearby hearth was doing interesting things to the dark violet of Jester's eyes, and by the time he's aware that he's walked into a trap the cage has already closed around him. Fuck's sake. Anytime Jester uses the words _you win_ you know you've already lost.

"I did not tell Beauregard that we wouldn't be cute together," he begins, wondering if by some miracle he can distract her, "or that we would be _terrible,_ just that it would not be a good idea — "

"Uh-huh. Twenty. Go."

Okay, fuck it. Why not? What's the worst that could happen?

Ignoring many, many terrible things that could happen, Caleb leans forward again and touches the tips of his fingers, counting off. "One, I am too old for you. Two, I am dirt-poor. Three, I am still a — "

"Hold on, hold on!"

"Are you — " He stops, because he can't quite believe what he's seeing, even now, even after years of loving — of knowing Jester. "Are you _writing this down?"_

"Of course I'm writing it down," she laughs, opening the journal she always carries with her to a blank page and licking the end of her pencil. "You've got to stay organized, Caleb, we're in a library. What was number one again?"

Were there any reasons at all, come to think of it? No, yes, there definitely were. He just said them. Caleb rubs a hand over his face. "I will start over. One, as I said, I am too old for you. And two — "

_"Too...old...for...me."_ Jester records this with mock solemnity. "All right, now, Caleb, this is kind of a bad start, because it's not true."

"...It is true. Number two — "

"But it's not, though," she cuts him off again, "because I'm twenty-one, and my birthday is in a few months, so I'm basically twenty-two, and I know you always _say_ you are bad with numbers but I think that's just to make me feel better about carrying all your money all the time, so even _you_ have to admit — "

"I am in my thirties, blueberry."

"Oh _please."_

Is he missing something? "I...am nearly thirty-five, Jester, you know this," he begins uneasily.

"Yeah, but," and her tail is flicking back and forth again as she leans in again, "you spent like _ten years_ in an insane asylum that you _don't remember,_ didn't you? We're not gonna count _that._ Like, I'll leave it on the list, you know, because you are going to need help getting to twenty, let's be real — "

"No, hold on." Caleb holds up a hand. "That's ten years. They still _happened._ I don't remember absolutely none of it, it was like…" He stumbles for the right words. "Like living in a fog, or half-asleep. I didn't just lose an entire decade, Jester, and even if I had…"

She waits for him to trail off this time, instead of interrupting him, and when she does speak, her voice is soft. "So you were, like, living life, and having experiences and maturing and stuff, while you were in there?"

If it were anyone else — even after all this time — if it were anyone else, Caleb knows, even Nott, even Beauregard, he would probably get up and leave the room. Not in anger, not hurt, necessarily; but some things, even after all this time, are still too much.

With Jester, though...it is hard for anything to be too much when he's with Jester.

It takes him a few moments to respond, with the way his chest has gone tight. "Well." Caleb clears his throat. "You are not...entirely wrong about that."

Jester smiles, a little sad, maybe, and Caleb catches himself, for just a moment, hating himself for giving her anything to feel sad about. Only a moment, though — because an echo of Jester's voice, from a not-too-distant conversation, drifts through and stops him.

_You're allowed to be sad, you know._ Where were they, Rexxentrum? The ruins of Blumenthal? _It sucks, but you're allowed to feel it. It's not the worst thing in the world. You helped teach me that, Caleb._

_If you only knew,_ he thinks now, _what you have been_ — but Jester has broken the gaze they were sharing and is writing in the journal again.

"I'm still gonna leave it on the list," she says, cheerful as ever, "but just so you know, you are _technically_ only twenty-four or twenty-five, Caleb, so just keep that in mind."

"Technically. I see. Who could ever argue with that."

He sees her glance up, realize that he is smiling, and now for the first time tonight it is Jester who is blushing.

"May I continue?"

"Oh, _definitely,"_ she says, ducking her head.

"All right, then, I am poor."

"Number two, you are — " She stops, scowls up at him. "But that's not true, Caleb, you have lots of money now."

_"We_ have lots of money," he corrects her, "we, the Mighty Nein, and we use most of it for things like armor and magic and trying not to die. Not for...you know...not for a house, or a family." Just saying it makes his face burn hotter. "Or to open up a donut shop, or whatever."

"Oh I don't _care_ about any of those things, Caleb, you know that."

He raises an eyebrow. "You don't care about a house or a family?"

Jester holds her hands up at the room around them. "We have a _mansion!"_

"It's not a _real_ mansion, Jester, it's not even on the Material Plane — "

"We have our _own magnificent magical mansion,_ Caleb, and it's _way_ nicer than some stupid house." Now she cocks her head back at the library door. "We have a family too."

"...That's not what I — "

_"Iknowthat'snotwhatyoumeant"_ tumbles out of her mouth, and now she's _definitely_ blushing, won't look him in the eye. _Jester_ won't look him, _Caleb,_ in the eye.

Well, this is...a little bit delicious, actually. "I was referring more to — "

"Yeah."

" — you know, most relationships eventually end up — "

_"Oh my god,"_ she says, and without meaning to he actually laughs out loud. "Go fuck yourself," she adds.

"That actually wouldn't — "

"NUMBER THREE," roars Jester, scrawling it into the journal.

It's Caleb's turn to grin. "I have never seen you embarrassed to talk about this sort of thing. Ever."

"Well," she mumbles, staring resolutely at the page, "it's never been about _you_ before."

He has nothing to say to that. Just watches her scribbling what looks like random shapes in the margins of the page, her wristbones delicate, fingers slender and practiced.

After a moment she pauses and looks up at him again. "Number three?" she repeats.

"Ah." Yes. "We are leaving number two on the list, then?"

"I told you," she smiles, "I'm being nice. You're never gonna get to twenty."

Caleb is starting to worry that she might be right — but this is Jester, giving him a challenge, and there is no way in hell he is backing down from that.

*

"All right," says Jester half an hour later, setting down her pencil and smoothing out the page in front of her, "let's see where we are at."

Caleb has one hand under his chin, leaning forward so he can read Jester's writing upside-down, so he knows exactly where they are at, but he doesn't mind a minute to stop talking and collect his thoughts, because...well, this list is not quite going the way he had planned.

"Number one." Jester clears her throat. "You are too old for me. Wrong, but sure. Number two, you are poor. Also wrong, but also sure."

She flicks a strand of hair out of her face with the end of her pencil. It's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

"Number three, you are technically still on the run. Doesn't count, I am technically still exiled, we are both fugitives, who cares. But sure."

"Sure," echoes Caleb, watching her hair fall back over her face again.

"Number four, overprotective mother, doesn't like you. Not actually that overprotective, does actually like you, even if she didn't I'm a fucking adult, totally wrong. _But sure."_

He could reach out with his other hand and tuck that curl behind her ear properly, he thinks — he could actually do that, she would let him, she'd go all quiet and soft — but he's not positive what he would or would not do after that, or what he would or would not be able to stop himself from doing.

"Number five, you are a cat person and I am a dog person. This is ridiculous, Caleb."

"It is ridiculous," he agrees. "You can cross that one out."

"No, no! Fair is fair, once it's on the list it stays."

"Really, we are sticking with that now?"

Jester coughs. "Number six — "

"If we're leaving that, I should get all those other ones you crossed out, shouldn't I?"

She gives him a _look,_ which he returns wholeheartedly, so with a put-upon sigh she continues, "Numbers six through ten, murderer, liar, torturer, thief, war criminal. Happy?"

"Surprisingly, given what you just read out."

"I have to re-number everything now," she mutters.

"Ja, well, that's a tall order, maybe we should just say I win."

"In your dreeeeeams," she taunts, sing-song and lovely.

Caleb nearly remarks that this would be very much not in his dreams — he is only saved when Jester finishes writing and sets down her pencil again.

"Right, so, we are at number eleven." Her brow furrows. "I still think this one is a little weird. You don't like the gods."

"Is that what you put down?" He grabs the journal and slides it around to his side of the table before she can protest. "That's not exactly what I said."

"It's _basically_ what you said."

He smiles, because of course that's what she heard. "I said that I am not particularly religious, and that a cleric should probably date someone with a little more faith in the universe. I never said I did not like the gods, or believe in them. How could I not believe in your Traveler? He has saved my life more than once."

"He _has._ Lots of time."

"And I'm very grateful." Caleb slides the journal back to her. "I just can't see myself ever worshiping any of them."

Jester gives a small _hmm,_ but she's still smiling. "I guess I'll just have to have enough faith for the both of us, then."

"You always have, Jester."

There's a beat, while they stare at each other, while Caleb wonders at the shape of her nose, the curve of her lips, the trust and hope in her heart, while the table between them begins to feel very small, and then like it's not even there, and then —

Jester sits up a little straighter. "I should probably keep — "

"Keep reading, yeah." Caleb sits up too.

"Number twelve," reads Jester, "I'm out of your league — but, like, just barely, Caleb, you're very handsome when you aren't covered in mud — number thirteen, I have a serious pastry addiction that you find very concerning, well that's certainly true — fourteen, you are allergic to my perfume, that is a lie — fifteen, you're terrible in bed — " She scoffs. "I have it on _good authority_ that's not true, you're just getting desperate now."

"You — whose — "

"Sixteen, if we slept in the same bed, Frumpkin might eat Sprinkle." Jester sets down the journal. "Now this is a _real concern,_ Caleb, we're going to have to talk about this."

_"This_ is the one we have to talk about?"

"He's your familiar, so I think it's your job to make sure he doesn't kill my pets — "

"Wait, that one was just a joke — would Sprinkle actually be in our bed? Seriously?"

"Sprinkle is with me everywhere," says Jester gravely.

Caleb scratches the back of his neck. "I am starting to have some regrets."

"Aww, Caleb, don't worry," she beams at him. "You've got eighteen whole reasons here so far, you might still win!"

"You do realize even if I lose, I don't actually have to date you," he smiles, but she's ignoring him, and, well. Fair enough.

"Number seventeen, I just put _emotional baggage,_ honestly, because you gave me, like, a whole paragraph, and I thought that basically summed it up. Number eighteen — "

"What, no response to that one?" He says it as casually as he can, but there's a burning in his heart that she must be able to hear regardless. "Just moving right along?"

"Oh, well…" Jester glances up, searching his face, and trails off.

"Go on."

"It's just…" She swallows. One of her fingers starts fiddling with the corner of the page, folding it back and forth. "I mean, we both have emotional baggage. Right? Everybody's got issues."

Caleb thinks of the Lavish Chateau, of blue dragons, of a tunnel under a well. "I think you are pretty well-adjusted, actually, all things considered."

"I don't know." Her voice is very small. "I feel pretty fucked up some of the time."

Without giving himself time to reconsider, Caleb reaches out and takes her hand. "You are wonderful, Jester."

She squeezes his hand, and a shadow seems to move across her face, like a cloud passing before the sun, about to be blown away by the wind.

"We are all a little fucked up. Besides, it is...it is not a contest."

"Exactly," she smiles, squeezing his hand again. The shadow vanishes. "That's exactly my point."

"If it was a contest, I would win."

"I mean, you were almost gonna go back in time and fuck us all over because of your issues, so yeah."

Her words hit him like a blow. He lets go of her hand.

Immediately Jester covers her mouth, horrified. "Oh — Caleb — "

"No, it's fine." Caleb rubs his arm. "It's fine. It's true. You were just agreeing with me."

"Yeah, but Caleb — "

"Don't worry about it. Eighteen was next, right?" He leans forward and reads her handwriting in reverse. _"Our kids would look really weird with blue skin and red hair._ That's a very valid point, you know, that should stay on the list for sure."

"Caleb."

There are tears in her eyes.

He sits back in his chair, exhales — tries to speak — but there's nothing. All at once, the weight of exactly why they were making this list in the first place crashes down on him.

_You arsehole,_ he thinks, _you fucking stupid man, what were you playing at?_

"Caleb…"

Jester stands up. She walks around to his side of the table, puts a hand on his shoulder — he shrugs it off, she puts it back again, relentless.

"I'm so sorry," she begins.

"Don't be sorry." His own voice sounds foreign to him after the past hour or so of conversation. "You said nothing wrong." His eyes are burning. "I should probably — "

She kneels down next to his chair, so that she's looking up at him, her hand soft on his arm. "You are the best person," she says, holding his gaze, "the best man, that I know — no, don't look away. Hey." Her grip on his arm tightens. "You are the best friend I have ever had. You are kind, and good, and brave, and there is nothing about you that scares me, or that makes me want you even a little bit less."

Caleb feels like he's going to choke. "Fuck, Jester," he manages to gasp, "you deserve someone who doesn't hate himself."

For a moment she just keeps staring at him, her eyes shining. Then, silently, she gets up and goes back to the other side of the table.

_Number Nineteen,_ he sees her write. _You hate yourself._

"Jester…"

"It's on the list." She drops the pencil.

His throat aches. "Just let me — "

"I'm not done." She takes a deep breath. "It's on the list. It's okay if you hate yourself. Because I can love you enough for the both of us, Caleb, if I have to."

Gods help him, it's too much. It's too much.

"So. That's nineteen. You need one more reason."

"I can't think of anything," he says truthfully, unable to take his eyes off her.

Jester wipes away her unfallen tears. "You told me twenty," she reminds him, her voice still shaking slightly.

"Ja, I did."

"Twenty, or you have to date me."

"That is still not how it works. But sure."

"Well?"

Caleb stands, and for just a moment — only a moment — he thinks, _This is a bad idea._ It's an echo of Jester's voice, from long ago, from Rexxentrum or the ruins of Blumenthal, that keeps him going.

_You're allowed to be sad, you know._ Her hand, slipping easily into his. _But you're also allowed to be happy. I hope you let yourself, one day, Caleb._

"How about, number twenty," Jester is saying as he walks around the table towards her, "you're not in love with me?"

"That won't work."

"Why not?"

"You know why," he says, right before he kisses her.

It's perfect. That's all. It's just perfect. Maybe the only perfect thing in his life so far, he thinks, when he is eventually able to think again. Jester is kissing him back, her hands in his hair, and he wonders: why did he wait two years for this? Why did he wait two _days?_

There were reasons, he's sure of it, but just at this moment he can't imagine what they were.

_fin_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [put them together and you can hear it (it's the song everyone knows) [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059124) by [Baelkaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baelkaz/pseuds/Baelkaz), [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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